Fallen
by OrangeShipper
Summary: "He existed. And if that was not 'well', could he really tell her?" Matthew-centric one-shot, 1917, from the trenches. Contemplating the war and himself as he tries to write home. Can be considered a prequel to Broken.


A/N: _The idea for this fic came about via the influence of a book I'm reading at the moment, My Dear I Wanted to Tell You by Louisa Young which I would heartily reccommend to ANYONE (if you like depressing WW1 literature!). I decided it would be 'fun' to explore Matthew in the trenches_, _and then realised it would work well as a prequel to Broken, so watch out for that!_

_Just to make you aware, I've referenced a balcony kiss here between M/M which is part of my personal canon from Missing Pieces (chapter 9, if you want to remind yourself!)._

_Huge thanks to Silverduck and Silvestria for making sure I haven't taken Matthew off the rails (also to Silvestria for the title!)  
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><p><strong><span>Fallen<span>**

Captain Crawley trudged up the foul, stinking trench. Well, he supposed it was foul and stinking. It looked it, certainly, but he didn't seem to actually notice, so much, anymore. Nearly three years of being 'out here', in the unforgiving mud of Flanders, had hardened his senses. He could faintly remember his disgust at it, to start with, but that was faded now. A sort of numbness had dulled him, so that a foul, stinking trench felt like home, where he should be, with a far more appealing sight and smell than some of the sights and smells he had had the displeasure to experience.

On his way to the officer's dugout (a privilege of being a Captain was having a proper bed, and a proper roof over your head, of sorts), he paused by the small dug out area under the parapet where small groups of his men would huddle and try to sleep.

"Alright, chaps?"

"We've weathered worse, Sir, I think!" Jones grinned optimistically at him as another shell fell not too far away, making the earth shudder around them, and them all sway a little. The bombardment had been going on for days. They'd been lucky, so far. Matthew had heard through the officer's pipeline that there'd been casualties down the line, and he had a sick feeling that they could not escape it for long.

"I think we have, Jones," he smiled proudly back. They were a good bunch, his company. He'd been fortunate. They were decent, followed orders – stupid, suicidal orders though they often were - that he had to give them. But still, he did it, and they did it, and they looked out for each other. He owed his life to more than one of them. They were the best thing about being out here, without a doubt.

"What are you doing, then, Sir?" Pindar asked cheekily.

"None of your bloody business!"

"S'alright, Pindar, you know when he says it like that he's off to write to 'is mother. Bless you, Sir!"

A snicker rippled through them, and Matthew couldn't help but smile, then suddenly had to steady himself as another howling whistle preceded the dull thud that showered earth and made the very ground shake. Closer, this time.

"Watch it, Stevens, or I'll have the lot of you on sentry duty for a full week," he threatened when it had settled, a mischievous glint in his eye. He was used to their teasing, now. He was not an ordinary soldier, not really. He wrote to his mother often, he did not have a 'sweetheart', or at least, not one that he spoke of. Oh, they suspected there was something behind his guarded expression and defensive change of subject every time they asked, there had to be. He joined them in the bars alright, swigging whisky along with the rest of them, but he never let it go too far. He never visited the brothels with them; unusual, really, for an officer. He could, of course – had thought of it, wondered if he 'should' perhaps, if he was less of a man somehow for having not – even some with wives and families visited the brothels. But not Crawley. Somehow, he couldn't bring himself to. He could not think of it without thinking of _her_ – and he did not like to think of _her_, though she bombarded his mind regardless. And so, decent, noble, brave Captain Crawley wrote to his mother instead. And bore their jokes.

"Aye, Sir, alright then." They all grinned at him.

"Good. Well, try and get some rest, lads – all we can do is sit tight, and stay alert." He tried to look encouraging, though really there seemed little use in it, it was all meaningless and they all knew it.

"Oh, that'll be no bother, Sir," drawled Bessant, lying back on his mat and kicking mud off the tips of his boots. "Shells ain't nothing compared to my missus snoring. This is like 'eavenly peace, this."

They all laughed. They laughed at anything now, had to.

With a last reassuring nod at the small bunch of men, he carried on up the line, grinning and throwing a dismissive wave behind his back at their parting cries of "Say 'ello to your mother from us, Sir!". He eyed the grey sky warily, his entire body uncomfortably tensed in anticipation that at any moment, one of those flying, wailing monsters might appear screaming out of it in his direction. He'd been tense like this for days now. Days? More like weeks. Months. The entire bloody time. He was sick of it. Bloody war.

The next one caused him to lose his balance as it slammed into the ground, only a little distance away from their section of trench. The impact sent earth showering in over Matthew, sent him lurching into the trench wall with a low grunt. God, he thought, that one was close. With his shallow breaths ringing in his ears in the brief, silent aftermath, he pushed himself upright, shook the dirt from his shoulders and strode a little quicker over the rotting duckboards until he reached his dugout.

Once inside, in his little haven, he took his cap off and scrubbed his hand through his hair. It was filthy. All of him seemed perpetually filthy. Grimacing slightly, he shrugged off his jacket, feeling all the mud and dirt slide down his shirt collar and down his back. It was no good, he couldn't stand it; he quickly discarded his rough cloth tie and writhed out of his damp, filthy shirt. He felt as though mud was ingrained into his very skin now. With a slight shiver, he moved behind the screen in the corner and tried to wash it off with cold water, scrubbing futilely at his skin, wondering when he'd next feel clean, really clean, in his mind as well as his body. He wasn't sure it was possible.

As he roughly towelled himself dry, he cast his eyes down over his lean torso, flecked with scars, markers of having done his 'duty'. He supposed he should be proud of them. He was not proud, exactly, but he looked at them every day, made himself, harsh reminders that he was 'doing his bit'. The ugly raised scar in his side where he'd not quite managed to avoid a Hun's bayonet. The two dents in his lower left shoulder, where the bullets had torn through him; more visible on the back where his skin was rippled and twisted from the exit wound. He'd been out for a while with that one; not bad enough to get sent back to England, but it had become infected and he'd been very lucky. Thank God there had been someone there each time to pull him out of it. He'd seen too many left behind, left helpless in the craterous, flooded shell-holes, gasping for life. Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, he concentrated his mind, going through the familiar ritual. First, flashing through those he'd lost – trying to recall their names, their faces, out of respect. It bothered him greatly that it was getting harder to remember them all, there were too many. Then, he concentrated even more, and slowly, surely, cleared his mind of it all. It took so much effort, to block it all out, and he stood trying for a few minutes, calming himself with deep breaths, until his attempts were shattered by another nearby crash, making him stumble. The walls shook. His eyes flashed open and he glared out, around him, up somewhere, over there, towards them. Bastard Germans.

Tugging on a fresh shirt, he grabbed his writing pad and pen and dropped them onto the small table. He almost sat down but then, as if he had meant to but forgotten, went back to his cabinet and took a deep draught of whiskey. To settle his nerves, he told himself.

With a heavy sigh, he sat down and pulled the pad towards him, folding open her last letter by the side for reference.

_Dear Mother,_

_Thank you for your letter. I am_

He stopped. He never knew what he was supposed to say, he struggled every time. That he was well? He supposed he was, as well as anyone out there could expect to be. He existed. And if that was not 'well', could he really tell her? How god-awful it was, how much he hated, detested it, how much it sickened him? She wouldn't want to hear it, and there was no point in making her worry. But meaningless platitudes saying that it was all fine and dandy were equally inappropriate. Because it wasn't. The only saving grace was that he had numbed himself to it. Death, and mud, and blood, and death, and killing, and boredom, and dirt, and death – inescapable death, all around him. But that was his life, now, and it was all so familiar and ordinary that it didn't bother him so much anymore. But that was hardly 'well', was it? In fact, it was bloody not 'well'; it was bloody wrong and rotten.

But his mother did not need to know all that.

_quite alright, much the same as usual really. The days drag on without much incident. We've been back at the front for a week now, but there is little to do. We are waiting, waiting for an opportune moment no doubt before something happens again. The chaps are all doing alright, bored as well, but they keep each other amused. _

_It is always a comfort to hear of_

To hear of what? He glanced down her letter. Molesley's roses were starting to bloom in the garden. Cousin Cora had thrown a sort of dance at the big house to cheer the recuperating soldiers, now it was a convalescent home. Cousin Violet was still needling her; he did smile at that. Sybil was getting on well as a nurse under her wing. She'd taken a trip to York, and the daffodils were in their full spring parade on the city walls.

He wasn't sure whether it was a comfort or not. On the one hand, it certainly was; to know that there was life, flowers, activity other than sitting and waiting and killing, somewhere in the world. That existence was almost inconceivable to him while he was out here, and it was a joyous thought that the world was like that still, _somewhere_. But, then, it only served to remind him, with simmering bitterness, that that _somewhere_ was not _here_, and all he had was the mud, and blood, and death, and… He frowned, pinching the bridge of his nose. Those thoughts were no use at all; he had to cling onto _something_…

Once more he scanned down the letter, searching (as he always did) for her name, though he already knew it wasn't there. He hated the fact that, much as he would like to deny it, she still had a hold over him. Mother was always very careful when she mentioned her; Matthew never asked, of course, and so she did not know whether he should like to hear of her, or not, and so she always left it, referring to her in passing occasionally. But secretly, he longed to hear of her, to know how she was coping and what she thought of it and did she ever think of him? He hated the fact that, no matter how hard he tried not to, he always thought of her in the thick of it; for he knew that of all the people and the things he might like to think of if he were about to die, none surpassed her, no matter how much she had hurt him. He blinked as he realised he had unconsciously scrawled her name across the page, below the meaningless drivel to his mother.

_Mary._

He stared at her name in fresh, black ink on the pad in front of him. Simply looking at her name - contemplating it, repeating it almost reverently in his mind, whispered upon his lips - sent a small shiver through him. The others had their whores and their French girls; he had her, and the memory long ago of her kiss; that was quite enough for him. When he closed his eyes and remembered it, really concentrated hard, he could still see her, and smell her, and taste her, and it made him wish bitterly that things had not turned out as they had. The memory was a bittersweet treasure.

He realised that he didn't really want to write to his mother at all, and tore off the page, balling it up and throwing it into the corner. What would he say if he were writing to her? Would it be the same bland lies? Or... could he tell her things how they really were? He couldn't, of course he couldn't. But what if he did?

_Mary,_

He felt a sudden urge to spill out everything, opening the floodgates of his mind, giving up his stubborn denial. He missed her, oh how he missed her, and the way they had been able to talk.

_Mary, I think I need you. _

He looked at it. There, it was down on the page in front of him. It hadn't been so hard. He wrote a little more.

_I miss you, I wish… I wish things were different. I wish you'd said yes, I wish there wasn't this war, I wish I'd known what was going on in your stubborn, beautiful head, I wish you were here with me – no, no, I do not wish that, you couldn't… I wish I wasn't here… Oh, Mary, I wish it was all simpler. Easier. _

He blinked. He liked it, found it strangely calming. His pen began to fly across the page then, thoughts flowing out into words, almost desperately. He felt the sweet release of pouring out his mind, without the worry of what she might think as he had no intention of sending it. He saw it almost as like a journal, finding it easier to address these thoughts to her, as though he were not quite admitting them to himself. He had to get them out, somehow.

_I don't know what you know, what you've read in the papers, what the old boys there have told you… But let me tell you, it's awful. Utterly bloody awful, and I hate it. I hate who I've become. And God, I miss you. Mother never writes of you, and really, though hearing of Sybil's escapades and Mother and Cousin Violet's battles are cheering enough, I don't care so much what they are doing, I care about what you are doing, and whether you think of me or worry about me – though of course Mother could never tell me that, even if she knew it. Anyway, I'm not sure you should think of me or worry about me – I am changed, I feel good for nothing now but war, fighting, killing, sending poor young sods out in front of me – and I could not burden you with all that. I wonder if you are changed at all, as I am. No, not as I am. But whether you are changed, softened or hardened by it all._

_I was not made for this, Mary. I don't think anybody was. I don't know what I was made for, but it wasn't this._

_I'm sorry I haven't ever seen you, really seen you I mean, when I've been on leave. It just… always seemed that I had so much I would like to say; only time was always so short, and I could never dare because I never knew if you would just laugh at me or spurn me or reject me again. I could not have borne it if you had. You see, so long as I don't know, I can always hope just a little – I don't know what for, I think that it might be disastrous if I told you all that I felt and you welcomed it, for I should never get back here, should never tear myself away from you… No, Mary, it's better this way. _

He stopped and sighed, clenching his fist around his pen, the familiar frustration of his feelings biting at him. No matter his feelings about the war, and this hell-hole he was stuck in, they paled in comparison sometimes to the strength of what he still felt for her. He struggled to reconcile it to himself, how much he hated her and loved her in equal measure. Oh, he hated her alright; a small, stupid part of him blamed her that he had ended up out here so quick. For he was sure that, had she accepted him, he would not have been so hasty to enlist. He was still bitterly hurt by her rejection; the pain had dulled somewhat after three years but it still did hurt. But then, on the other hand… He loved her, felt a thrill when he thought of her, when she appeared in his mind like a vision in the midst of battle. Standing up, he went and swallowed another glass of whiskey, before sitting and picking up his pen again with a trembling hand.

_You see, Mary, I don't know if this is selfish of me, but… You live in my head, now; that is the only place for you here, it must be. I hate you, I love you, so very, very much, and I worry that if I were to really talk to you when I was back, that… the idea of you in my head would be spoilt. You would not be loathsome, you would not be perfect, you would be… I don't know what you would be, but I'm not sure I would know how to deal with it. Is that very terrible of me? You see I need something – I need you – I need you to fix my burning anger upon, I need to, I must, blame something for all this, for it must have a reason – and yet equally I need you to fix upon, to give me hope, to give me something to fight for, for I do fight for you Mary, you are the only thing that keeps me going… And so you see, if I were to talk to you, I don't think I should be able to hate you so much, and I worry that I if I had lost ALL hope of you loving me I should not be able to cling to you, and… Oh Mary, I am a stupid, stupid, lost man, but I need you as you are, in my mind, and I am sorry, because I do long for you. But I can't… I can't. _

_This bloody war, it's ruined everything. It's ruined me, and I don't know how I can ever_

Without warning, everything suddenly went into slow motion. The whistle, the deafening crash, but loud, so loud, and suddenly the entire room was shaking and breaking itself apart as the door and walls shattered and harsh, wooden shards came screaming and flying towards him as he was hurled backwards by the force of it. He slammed helplessly into the back wall, head cracking sharply back against it. The table he'd been sitting at smashed into him, and then like a terrible storm the debris hit him, huge splinters tearing and lodging into his flesh with incredible force, attacked by the very walls of his haven. Indescribable pain encompassed him, he couldn't think, he couldn't breathe, could do nothing but let a raw, agonised yell tear from his throat. With the last vestiges of his officer's instinct, shaking and broken on the ground, he battled the pain and looked up to see that the ceiling had lost the support of the walls; the whole thing buckled and sagged and he just had time to throw up his arms over his face as it all fell crashing around him, battering him into blissful unconsciousness.

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><p>He coughed.<p>

Slowly, his mind in a fog of pain and confusion, his eyes blinked gradually open. What had happened? Was he dead? Was this what it was like? No – surely heaven could not hurt this much. Hell, then, that probably could. Ever the officer, he tried to take stock of his situation. He hurt, everywhere, that was foremost in his mind and it was almost impossible to think beyond. He couldn't move. He couldn't see. Darkness, such darkness, and dust swirled around him, between the chunks and timbers of wooden mess on top of him. He coughed again, wincing as sharp pain seared through his chest. He was alive, at least, alive enough to feel that.

Grimacing, he raised his head as much as he was able, a sick feeling sweeping through him over the pain as he caught glimpses of his torn and bloodied shirt under the debris. He tried to raise a shaking hand but had to stop. Fragments of memory began to seep back through the fog of his mind. Mary was there. Why was she there? He swallowed. Blood. He could taste it, see it around him, his own warm, red blood. Everything hurt. Mary... His legs – he suddenly realised he couldn't feel them. Oh, God, what had happened to his legs? Clenching his teeth with a low grunt, he tried to raise himself up onto his elbows, his entire body protesting, shuddering violently with the effort, enough to see his legs disappearing underneath a heavy wooden beam, before he collapsed back with a harsh cry of pain. God, it hurt. Mary... Sucking in shuddering breaths, he closed his eyes, fixing upon her. Her face. Her body. He was back there, in that dining room, on that balcony, kissing her, holding her… The pain, oh God the pain and his legs… Mary. Tasting her, touching her, everything about her filling his senses… Oh Lord it hurt, and all he could smell was his own blood… Mary, impossible, beautiful Mary… It took every scrap of effort he could muster. If he was going to die, and oh Lord he thought he might, he wanted her, not the mud, and the blood, and the pain, just her… Mary… Everything was Mary, and pain, and Mary, until gradually, mercifully, he sank back into unconsciousness.

**Fin**

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><p>AN: _Sorry, Matthew...! Thank you so much for reading. I hope Matthew didn't seem too OOC, but I think everything would be amplified/taken to extremes in his mind in that situation. Really, we can't know how he'll be affected by the war, and I can't wait to find out in series 2! I'd love to know what you thought, reviews as always are very much appreciated! Thanks, I hope you 'enjoyed' it (probably not the right word!) :)_


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